Abe’s political legacy is at stake

An impending economic crisis and the possibility of Olympics being cancelled are staring at the PM

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Everyone is familiar with road rage but in Japan these days it is unmasked coughing-provoked rage that is grabbing the headlines. As the number of COVID-19 cases continues to grow, there have been several incidents on usually quiescent Tokyo trains of commuters getting incensed with unmasked coughers. Brawls have ensued and in one case, the emergency button of a train was pushed, bringing it to a halt and causing a delay of three minutes — which in Japan is the equivalent of social collapse.

Japan has had a seesaw relationship with the novel coronavirus. After weeks of being criticised for botching up the quarantine of the Diamond Princess , a cruise-ship with hundreds of infected passengers on board, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sprang into action in late February, announcing a surprise nationwide school closure. He has since rushed through legislation that will allow him to declare a state of emergency, if needed. This would enable the government to order residents to stay indoors, close public facilities, expropriate land and buildings for medical facilities and request or order emergency transport of goods.

Although Mr. Abe has stressed that he will only declare an emergency as a last resort, the school closure already has parents across the archipelago scrambling to balance childcare with work commitments.

Japan’s work culture stresses face time and long hours. Many companies are not equipped mentally to re-envisage these patterns by incorporating teleworking or flexi-time. The school closure has predictably hit women, who shoulder the majority of responsibility for children, the hardest. The decision has met push-back from critics, including those accusing it of inherent gender bias. “The government has no idea what it’s like to raise children,” one mother complained. Mr. Abe’s 20-member Cabinet only has two women in it. Mr. Abe has announced an emergency spending package to ease the burden on irate employees who must take time off from work to look after their children. Small businesses that introduce telecommuting will also receive a subsidy, according to the plan. Details of the package and of the manner of its disbursement are, however, still awaited.

The actual numbers in Japan are not explosive. There were just over 400 cases reported, excluding the cases from the Diamond Princess cruise ship. However, it is widely acknowledged that the actual numbers are probably much higher. Although the Japanese government has said it has the capacity to carry out 3,800 tests a day, only about 21,000 tests had been conducted as of March 10, according to the Health Ministry. In contrast, neighbouring South Korea had conducted over 2,10,000 tests by the same date.

A strong foe

Despite Mr. Abe’s belated muscularity in confronting COVID-19, the virus is proving a strong foe. A state visit by China’s President, Xi Jinping, which was to have been a crowning achievement of Mr. Abe’s geopolitical strategy by helping stabilise Tokyo’s rocky relationship with Beijing, has been postponed.

Worse, the Olympic Games that Tokyo is to host in the summer might be postponed or even cancelled. The Olympics were a chance for Japan to wow the world with a counter-stereotype image of an open and increasingly multicultural society. They have also been very expensive to prepare for. A report by SMBC Nikko Securities estimates that a cancellation of the Games would reduce Japan’s annual GDP by 1.4%.

Even if the Games are only postponed, Japan is in economic hot water, not least because of its reliance on Chinese tourism. Last year, the country hosted 31.9 million foreign visitors, about 9.5 million of whom were big-spending Chinese. Visitors from China accounted for more than 37% of tourist spending, according to Japan Tourism Agency data. But Mr. Abe, belatedly according to critics, has instituted border controls that effectively ban tourists from China and South Korea through the end of March by invalidating millions of visas.

While it is unclear how effective Mr. Abe’s measures, like the school closure, will prove in containing the spread of COVID-19, what is more clear is the Prime Minister’s motivation in acting tough: his political legacy is at stake.

The Japanese Prime Minister is in the last lap of his premiership and he does not want to go down as the leader who presided over a pandemic, cancelled Olympic Games and economic recession — all of which are possibilities under present circumstances.

(Pallavi Aiyar is a journalist based in Tokyo)